Kadomi reviewed The shining girls by Lauren Beukes
Time-travelling serial murder
5 stars
Content warning Spoilers for the plot
I personally loved this story to bits, even though the ending was a bit too vague for me. But other than that, I pretty much inhaled this book.
Curtis Harper is a grifter in the early 1930s. But then he finds this strange house in Chicago, and a wall of names, of girls that shine, and their mementos. The house allows Harper to travel through time, and he leaves a bloody slash through time, as he murders shining girls throughout all periods of time up to the 90s. But one girl survives, and starts to hunt him down.
I would have liked to know more about the house, what allowed the antagonist to travel through time like this? But that's not the point of this novel. Instead we get fascinating glimpses through time, of the victims. Of a woman of colour working in the arms industry during WWII. A dancing girl in the 30s who painted her skin with radium. Of an illegal abortion helper in the 70.
I was very hooked, despite the unsatisfying end of the story, in the same way Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell usually reel me in. Must hunt for her other books now.
